Iain Martin is a political commentator, and a former editor of The Scotsman and former deputy editor of The Sunday Telegraph. He is the author of Making It Happen: Fred Goodwin, RBS and the men who blew up the British economy, published by Simon & Schuster.. As well as this blog, he writes a column for The Sunday Telegraph. You can read more about Iain by visiting his website

Stephen Hester was never going to do much beyond five years at RBS

The final chapter or so of my book on RBS – Making It Happen: Fred Goodwin, RBS and the men who blew up the British economy – is going to need a tweak before publication this autumn. Stephen Hester, the CEO of RBS, is later this year leaving the bank in which the British taxpayer owns a majority shareholding. It is clear – from his remarks this evening – that he did not want to go so soon, and that he was happy to steer the bank through the first part of the privatisation process next year. But the board wants a successor in place who can guarantee to investors that he or she will be around for the next few years.

Hester could never, realistically, commit to that. I'll write more on this in the next few days. But it has always been clear to me that the chances of Hester going much beyond the fifth anniversary of his arrival, when the bank was collapsing in October 2008, were always pretty limited. Five years is a long spell as CEO of any modern firm, especially when it is, on one level, the most heavily scrutinised corporate in the UK. Understandably the taxpayers and shareholders who had to pay for the collapse and rescue take a big interest in bonuses, pensions, knighthoods for former chief executives etc.

Hester and the chairman of RBS, Philip Hampton, also have a relationship that might politely be described as occasionally combative. Hampton clearly believes, say supporters, that part of the problem in the old RBS was that (Sir) Fred the Shred faced insufficient challenge.

The Government also has its mitts all over RBS. Forget the denials about it being an arm's-length relationship, to ensure that ministers and officials play no part so that RBS can be run purely as a commercial concern. Spin bordering on utter garbage.

All in all, I suspected that Hester would eventually go on or around the fifth anniversary of the unveiling of the Hester March 2009 restructuring five-year plan – which would take him up to March 2014. But no, for Stephen Hester it will all be over by Christmas.